Chobham (thing)

Chobham is the name of a village in Surrey, England. It is also the colloquial name for composite armor, which was first made in that village. Chobham is a heavy, massive armor plate which is made by laminating several different types of materials together in order to protect against a variety of threats. It is used by the NATO nations on Main Battle Tanks. The construction of Chobham is secret, although there are clones of it in service around the world by now.

The varying substances of Chobham are each designed to defend against different threats. The basic armor plate is shaped and surrounded with RHA, which in addition to giving the armor its basic shape matrix is the best compromise between plasma and kinetic penetration resistance. Additional layers likely include depleted uranium for mass, harder metals such as titanium or perhaps iridium, and ceramics for resistance to plasma from HEAT sandwiched between metal layers to minimize the brittle nature of ceramic materials. DU layers are typically kept near the outside of the armor, sometimes as an applique, due to its toxicity and the pyrophoric nature of uranium - if it is penetrated, it tends to catch fire and flow in the direction of the shot. Since burning DU is highly lethal in its own right, better to have that on the outer layers, although if the armor is penetrated the chances of crew survival aren't great, given the energy levels involved.